My babysitter, also named Merel, used to carry a piece of soft fabric with her in her pocket so that she could reach in whenever she wanted. These pockets are to be carried with you and contain Merel's favorite touch, and they enable you to experience it the same way she did.
Inspired by the practice of statue rubbing, I asked classmates to imprint their touch in clay, that I later fired and glazed to become ceramics. Who touches the ceramic objects, receives the physical touch of a classmate. the ceramic object acts as a mediator to still make pysical touch possible.
Now they are on tinder.
I find skin to skin touch the most sensual and healing thing there is. It is ultimate closeness. Skin is not a harsh barrier, it is a rather porous organ. When touching someone skin to skin you are so much closer to them than you think. Touch is intimacy.
Now we live in times where physical touch is in some ways no longer allowed. No shaking hands, no hugs, no kisses. Physical touch is considered to be potentially dangerous, rather than healing. I miss it. And so do many.
This is a collection of touch.
The structure of this exposition is like that of an island archipelago.
Each kind of touch I have explored is like a little island, a little exploration of itself, but they are still very much interconnected with the island group as a whole. Each island has their own unique climate and nature and fauna, but this unique make up of the island could have only been possible with the influence of the climates and natures and faunas of all the other surrounding islands.
There is no hierarchy, each island is as important to the archipelago as the other.
My desk at Pastoe has the same structure.
Feeling a fence
Documenting touch into an experience(the tapestry), as touch is something to be experienced, and not only to be looked at
